David Barry – the Cognitive Revolution

The Transcript:

Welcome to Get Shirty, the podcast where we ask our guests about the things in life that just
never failed to irritate and get them all shirty. The chat focuses on home, work and going out,
but could go anywhere. And it’s not all German gloom as each guest gets a major measure shirt
which they design, so we talk about that too. Funny that, us being tailors.
[Music]
Our guest this episode is actor and writer David Barry. David is best known for his role in the
76th Company, sir, and the spin-off The Fence Street Gang. David started his career with various
theatre roles, including Ator with Lawrence Olivia and Vivian Lee, no less, which we discuss.
As well as acting, David wrote for TV and stage and has been writing novels for the last 20 years,
as well as continuing to act in films, TV dramas and comedies. We discuss the joys of being on
the notorious side crossroads, we talk football chat and we even sneak in a bit of jaw-jown
and mildred. Here we go then, one guest, two mics, three tailors and a host of irritations. Let’s get shirty.
[Music]
[Music]
Do you listen to many podcasts? Yes, I do actually. I listen to a lot of crymones,
BBC sounds and that sort of thing. Right, yeah, of course. Of course.
And it was a very good one with Toby Jones. It was called the Stretem, I think it was Stretem,
Palteghised, brought back to see Palteghised. [Music]
David, welcome to the Gitcherti podcast. Thank you very much, David.
It’s a pleasure, lovely to have you here and another to do a podcast with another local
and another local celeb. Well, there’s a few round Tamujewa, actually. Yes, yes. A little musician,
as an actor. That’s right. And I’ve only discovered who’s moved here, Bob Mortimer,
lives in Tamujewa, now, apparently. I’m yet to bump into him, yeah. Yeah, saying, yeah. But I believe
he’s quite shy when he’s not performing. Yeah, I think I’ve read somewhere that there’s something
very similar, actually. I’ve met him once years and years and years ago, actually years and years
long time ago. He was very shy then. I was working in a shop and he came in there and bought something,
didn’t really want to talk or anything, which I can’t blame him, I suppose.
You must get stopped quite a lot, as well as when you get to a certain level. But yeah, I don’t
heard that he moved to Tamujewa. Apparently, he used to be a fan of having an afternoon nap in his car,
at the car parking, nice park at the cinema. Apparently. He said that on somebody else’s podcast
and trying to think which one it was. I’m quite the opposite. I can’t stand my own company,
I’ve got to be with other people. Well, fair enough. So we’ve gone through your shirt today,
and we’ve gone for something rather nanny, I think. I think it looks very attractive. It will do.
One of that is a darker background pattern, but it’s a very highly patterned
kind of floral pattern with a nice paisley contrast with the inside of the collar.
Yes. We’re going short sleeves, ready for the summer.
Yeah, it’s quite a nanny shirt you’ve got on there now. Yes, this is from off the peg.
Next.
Yeah, so, Gina, they were almost my exact words. Yeah, I know, it is very nice. It’s nice,
this lock has got that nice contrast and nice pattern too. Very nice,
mansionously with jacket and jeans, very modern, you know, I like it.
The idea behind the podcast, as we talked about, is a little bit about the shirt.
Take that, that’s the sort of at least interesting bit. I suppose probably of the chat,
but also then to talk about the things in life, which we find a little bit irritating,
and get a shirty, but just in general, you know, we’ve had all sorts of the calls of the podcast from
our dish washes through to building work and everything in between, I suppose, isn’t it?
Yeah, I think we’re going to get shirty about because I don’t follow football at all. If I go in the
local pub and people, blocs are talking about football, it goes on and on and on, and I get very
shirty about that. Yeah, because I just don’t follow football. What are they talking about? And if
you’ve stopped football, what would blocs find to talk about? Yeah, well, I think that’s one of the
concerns, isn’t it? I imagine the world had grinded to a halt for a lot of chat.
Yes, well, I just prove I’m still in the human race. I say I follow Swansea, but I don’t really,
I only follow Swansea because that’s where Dylan Thomas came from.
Is there a better reason to follow? Exactly, because that was originally your neck of the woods,
was it? Well, North Wales was my neck of the woods. Yes, but I do like it down there and I love
Dylan Thomas and I’ve been in Under Mill could several productions, even on Radio 4.
I don’t have any of them, right? Okay, so what prompted to move from Wales then, was it?
My parents moved back because my father was a London Welshman. Right, and during the war he was in
the civil defence and of course, as I’m sure you know that the blitz in London only lasted about
nine months because then they wanted the bombers in the eastern front, you know, Russia.
It was all over by about 19 June 1941. Right. I think they sent a few doodle bugs and
the things that didn’t need pilots and that. Yeah, but I think my parents then moved back to Wales
and that’s where I was born and there were my parents loved theaters, galleries, cinema and all that
which there weren’t a lot of in Northern Anglesy. So we moved back to the southeast.
Right, and is that when you started acting? Because you were, I mean, I think your first
I.M.D.B has you down as your first thing in, forgot it’s three empty rooms. That was a first TV,
that was a first production, first production was at Theatre Royal Windsor in the play that has
still holds a record for the longest running play on Broadway, Life With Father, a non-musical,
you know. Wow. Yeah. And I understand as well through Regentry or notes that you did
a touring show with Lawrence Olivier? Is that right? Lawrence Olivier, Vivian Lee, Asyni Quail, yes,
but three of up all those names he dropped on the line. Right. Yes, he was, it was Titus Andronicus,
Shakespeare’s most bloodthirsty play of all time. And it was the most prestigious production of all time
because it was 1957 and it was at the height of the Cold War and we were the first company to go
into some communist block countries, Yugoslavia and Poland, all still under the yoke of Moscow then.
And of course, Olivier and Vivian Lee were going through a bad time in their marriage.
Right. And they were like the cultural ambassadors for Britain and they were just hoping they
wouldn’t air their dirty laundry in public. It did happen on a couple of occasions.
You did. Yes. But I learned some very colorful language at the age of 14.
Is that how old you were when you were doing that? Forty? Yes. Yes. Yes. We went to Paris, Venice,
Belgrade, Zagreb, Vienna and Warsaw. Wow. Yeah. And the most, I say this now without the benefit
of hindsight, Belgrade was fascinating because it was rather a gloomy city and of course,
it was a benefit of hindsight. We know now that their president was done for war crimes.
But it really was a gloomy city. But it was exciting for me because I loved cinema
and I’d seen the third man and so all the sorts of spies lurking around corners.
And the hotel we were in was all black marble. And they had the cafe on the ground floor.
They had the first ever jukebox in Yugoslavia and the natives used to come in and play it
from early morning to late at night. The trouble was there were only two records on
Harry Belafonte singing banana boat song and Bill Haley singing “Mambo Rock”.
Right. So I don’t ever want to hear those again. No, I don’t. Why just those?
Just the two hotel. Do you think that’s all they could get? Perhaps that’s all they could get?
Or something. I don’t know. Or perhaps they came with the jukebox.
Like the free samples. It’s better than George or a lot more.
Oh great. Wow. What an amazing thing to have done then.
Yes and then we did a six week engagement in London at the Stoltheater in Kingsway.
During that time Vivian Lee went to the House of Lords. She was invited for a debate about money to the
arts. Right. And she sat next to Black Rod on the visitors seat. And they started to talk about
tearing down the St James’s Theatre to build an office block. Right. And it was very dear to her heart
because she and Lawrence Olivier had run the theatre and she’d had her her most famous role.
Clear Patrick there which Churchill came to say and she said she stood up, did something you don’t
do in the House of Lords. She said, “I object by Lord you can’t so Black Rod threw her out.”
But she made so much it was in all the newspapers. She organized a march then every theatre company
march to try and save St James’s Theatre. Incredible. Yeah. Incredible. And easy to work with are they
sort of generous people to work with? Oh yes. Yes. It wasn’t like, you know, she must have sort of
been in a war and especially age 14 or because you were 14 did it just wash over you and you didn’t
really? No, no. I was. I used to watch them. I learnt such a lot at that age watching.
I used to watch in the Wigs and one day we were listening to the show Relay and Olivier
although he was speaking in perfect verse it didn’t make any sense. It was like dash down
into the Wings and he came off stage crying with laughter saying, “I was talking absolute bollocks.”
Oh brilliant. You just make it after he read a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Just to get through it.
Yes. Yes. But she was wonderful. She used to spoil me wherever we were. If there was a
kiosk selling confectionery she would just go and buy me something chocolate so sweets.
Tarkwyn Olivier, if you had a name like that, Tarkwyn Olivier, he wrote about his father
he only wrote about a page in a half about that tour. Alexander Walker wrote a biography of
Ibbian Lee and he had a half a page about that tour. Olivier wrote one paragraph about it and so
when lockdown happened I wrote about the tour. I wrote Lawrence Olivier and Ibbian Lee the final
curtain so I wrote about it in detail. Right. Because it’s never been written before. Yeah. Yeah.
I get the sherdies that we talk about. We sort of covered going out actually a little bit
yes. Been in the pub and the football conversations which we can go, wow, I was going to say we
go back to that but on so rubbish with football. He even talking about things we’re talking about
football. Probably passed me by but from a work restaurant thing isn’t it? Yeah. I thought I
think it’s like around and they’re hitting with their feet. Yeah. I think I’ve heard of it.
Yeah. But from a work point of view, you know, have you got, you know, what would be your
get sherdies about work? Is there, you know, would it be learning lines or other actors?
Not after nine times. No, no. I’ve not had a problem learning lines. But I did eight episodes
of Crossroads once. Get sherdies about that because it was it’s dreadful stuff, you know. I remember
I remember we used to do five, there were five episodes a week. Right. I TV stepped in and said,
no, no, no, no, the standards too bad. You’ve got to cut it down to three a week. But I was in the
early days. I never put it on my CV at all. It was dreadful. It does it. It crops up. If you
if you do a search for you and what you’ve done, it does it. It does appear in the eye
episodes that could you down this having? Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can’t escape it. Yeah. No, I was
I was too young really because this was at least six years before I played Frankie Albert and
please sir, where I was playing a 15 year old. Right. And in Crossroads, I was supposed to be playing
an agent saying to Carlos the chef, I could do things you I could turn you into a singing chef.
And I was much too young to play the part. But but I only got the part because of flattery.
Right. Because I had what they called a general audition. I wasn’t for a specific part.
And me and a couple of fellas were drinking in pubs in Wimbledon Village. And this chap said to me,
what you ought to do to the casting director is a florist opposite. Send her a bunch of flowers
saying thank you for one of the nicest interviews I’ve yet had in the business. So now we were all a
bit drunk. So I did this. And about two weeks later, I got this part totally miscalc’d. But that’s
where flattery catches you. Oh, brilliant. I’d have to remember that. Yeah. I’m good on Crossroads. Yeah.
I was surprised actually when I saw the sort of timeline of where that fell in sort of what you
done. Because in my mind Crossroads was, I don’t know, like mid to late 70s, but I suppose it was.
This was this was this was about, I don’t know, 63 or something like that. I didn’t think it
had run. Well, they had to they had to improve their act really by cutting it down to three a week.
Right. You know, and you know, longer rehearsal periods and all that sort of thing to improve it.
Because it’s famous, isn’t it, for having the the worst sets, like all the walls would bottle
out. Oh, yes. Slamadore and the set with wobble, yes. And the other thing I remember seeing was
I was talking to Anthony Morton who played the Carlos the chef. Right. And I thought,
it can’t see either of us because the the director was photographing the extras in the foreground.
And we were in the background. So you wonder, who’s talking? Yeah. So were they trying to get like an
atmospheric shot? Do you think like making it look busy or something? I think they were rehearsing for
ACON antique. Yeah. That’s it. Exactly that, isn’t it? That’s that sort of looking down the
camera. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. They got that cheek. Off to a tee. They really did.
And it shows you how bad it was though. I remember we, you know, each ITB program had to be 24 minutes
30 seconds. And it had to be fairly accurate because of the add, you know, the ads had to be,
I know, two and a half minutes or something, three and a half minutes. And anyway, we cut something
like a minute out of a scene. We had quite a long scene cut a minute. So and that was in the first half.
So in the second half, the director came down, didn’t look at us and said to Sue Nichols,
who was the receptionist at the Crossroads Motel, he said, “Oh, talk on the telephone. We’ll start
second half, you talking on the telephone.” She said, “What about?” He said, “I don’t care as long
as it’s a minute.” I did some live television and that was terrifying. All right.
And what was that? Their live television. Live television, I did, I played ginger in
just William, my first ITB production and they went out live,
cherished. They had what they called a cut button operated by the system floor manager. So if
somebody drive, they’ve forgot their lines. They cut out the sound, prompt you, bring the sound back on
and the people at home thought it was a technical fault, not human error. Oh, that’s quiet.
I could do one of those buttons, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just
momently ran on, pressed the button, let me waffle on. But of course, when we did police,
we used to do them with a studio audience. And our producer director was used to boast that we
used to start the recording at half eight and he said, “We were in the bar before quarter past nine.
No retakes at all. We used to do them without any retakes.” And was that, did you find that
pressure? Oh, yeah. Yeah, because I think editing them was, took a lot of time and money to edit,
it was, but wasn’t digital then, you know, so the producer would go mad if you had your edit,
go berserk, use to scream at us. Yeah, yeah, because it always came across that it was,
there was a real sort of nice gang or group of ads. It was like a family, yeah. Yeah.
Because did the film come first? No, we did, we did something like three series of police
television series and then we were getting a bit long in the tooth for the third series and they
we were introduced to careers inspectors and that sort of thing, that’s how the story lines went.
And then they made the film, but they made the film out of sequence, you know, so
John Alderton, although he was married in the third series of police, he was unmarried for the film
and, you know, they took it out of sequence. Right, right. Okay, so it was 35, that’s something,
I don’t know, yeah, I’ll be the police say, yeah, something we did even more of the spin-off
Fen Street gang. Yeah. And is that where you started writing first of all? Because you wrote
some of the Fen Street gang? I wrote one episode of the Fen Street gang, yes, because I had the very
dotty mother, you know, and played brilliantly played by Barbara Mitchell,
right, I played by mother and she always had something wrong with her legs and, you know, and, you know,
and I thought, what happened to her, but father? So I wrote an episode of, called “When Did You
Last See a Father?” Right. And it sort of went to explain why he was like he was and she, she, she,
she was like, yeah, and, yeah, we went very well, so. Yeah, and then it was at that that led on,
because it was keep it in the family as well. Keep it in the family as, because Mark Stewart,
who produced the directed police, he moved to Tenham’s television and he produced,
keep it in the family, so. I just love keep it in the family. I was, it was the, I really liked
the fact that he spoke to his glove puppet, the line glove, yes, he was drawing a cartoonist,
yeah, he was a cartoonist and one of his younger, that’s what one is to be, I wanted to be a cartoonist.
So the fact there was a cartoonist on the television who would then talk to this, he sort of talked
through his problems, wouldn’t he, to that, to that, yeah, to carry on drawing and then,
oh, what’s that, and sort of go back and talk to it. Was that, was that quite, how did you sort of make
that jump from acting to writing? Would you, had you already been writing? I’d been having,
yeah, I’ve been trying it out, you know, I’d written, I’d written, while we were doing Fence
Street game, tried my hand at the first novel, right, which is probably not very good, it’s probably
in some, you know, site narrative with the rest of the rubbish, you know, yeah, did you, did you
get it published, though, that then? No, no, all right, no, it wasn’t good enough, I don’t think,
but it was a learning curve, you know, yeah, yeah, so write for Fence Street and then, keep it in the
family, yes, and I did other little bits and pieces as well, like I wrote a morning story for
BBC Radio, they used to do a 15 minute story in the morning and I wrote that and they said,
oh, we don’t know if you can, somebody could read that, it’s a bit difficult, you know, going from a
company voice to an American and I said, well, I could do it, so they said, oh, all right, you do it,
then you can read it, so I read it myself. Yeah, double the, double the feeling as well,
oh, I keep writing these difficult ones where I can do them. And which is, what do you prefer,
do you love them both equally, the writing? Because you’re still writing now, aren’t you?
I’m still writing now, yeah, yeah, it stops you, really, seriously writing, you know, about,
I don’t know about 2002, really, yeah, I wrote a first novel, a thriller, each man kills,
setting South Wales, and I followed that up with two to make it a trilogy,
the wrecking bar and missing persons. So from a work point of view, there’s not a huge amount
of it, other than Crossroads, too, I’ve got Shirti about over the years.
No, no, I have obviously worked with some actors that I’ve very got Shirti with, and I also got
very Shirti, very Shirti, down in South Wales, I was doing Panto down in Porth Call, and myself and
this other actor, John Judd, who’s married to Helen Shapiro, and I used to do a radio show, and she
came on my radio, yeah, she was very good. And so I interviewed her husband, John Judd, and I worked
with him in this Panto, and he was in a television series called The Fuzz at the Time, playing one of
the main parts, and we were in this Aladdin, he was playing Dave, and I was wishy-woshy, and we,
we were doing a matinee once, and then the company manager came around and he said, “Have you read the
Western Mail?” No, no, he showed us the Western Mail, and said, “TV stars in Sex Joke Panto.”
Well, we were disgusted, so we came into the manager’s office, and the reporter, who reported this,
was there, so as a counsellor, and if he went on to read the article, a counsellor said, “Oh,
I came to see the Panto, there was nothing untoward about it, we came to a performance for disadvantaged
children, and it was clean.” And I was so angry about this, because we said that it’s going to be a
clean Panto, and it was. So anyway, I lost my temper, and I said to this reporter, “We all had a
cup of coffee, we were given coffee, and I wondered why he was there.” And I said, I said, “I’ve worked in
Cardiff, I’ve worked in Swansea, and now I’ve come to Piddly’s Port Call to have the book put in,
and he started to write it down.” And I thought, “I know why he’s here now, it’s to get another story.”
So I said, “I can’t lose anything now.” So I said, “If you want something to report, report this,
and I threw the hot cup of coffee over him, and he was drenched, he stood up,” he said. I don’t
think I could stay here much longer. And this counselor said, “I don’t blame you, Glenn,” and he
stormed out. It was the best thing I could have done, because he didn’t, there was no follow-up story.
Oh really? And on my way into the theatre that evening, the manager called me into his office,
and he looked like a character out of a Graham Green novel, you know, an ex-patt.
Should have been in Argentina, not Wales. Anyway, he called me into his office,
and I thought, “Oh, here it comes now, you know, I’ve been an orchy boy.” And he put out his hand for me,
to shake, and he said, “That’s one of the finest things I’ve ever seen.” And a kid would go by
on a skateboard in Port Call, he said, “I hope that coffee was hot.” But you know, it was the best thing
I could have done, and we used to, we used to, at the end of Curtain call, John and I used to sort of say,
“Oh, the Western Mail have said rather naughty things about us, but if you’ve enjoyed the show,
could you write on your Paddington bare paper to the Western Mail saying, “I’m not
you’ve enjoyed it?” So, in fairness to the Western Mail, they print not only did they print a
retraction, they also printed, they said, “We’ve had a number of kids let us, you know?” I did that,
and they did do the retraction as well. Yeah, yeah, they did. Liz Geppard, who played Maureen in
police, she used to have a cottage in Slamberis. A lot of people thought Geppard, “Well, a father was
American, but a mother was Welsh and a grandmother lived in Slamberis at the bottom of Snowden,
and one day we were watching, we were in her flat, and she was married to an actor called Ian
Talbot, who used to run Regents Park Open Air Theatre, and we were at the flat, and her mother came
running downstairs, and she said, “Switch the news on quick, and news at 10, the free Wales
Army or Clyde Cymru, I can’t remember who, were occupying her cottage, her weekend cottage,
and her grandmother, who spoke perfect Welsh, went and gave them a piece of their mind,
they’d broken into the cottage, breaking a back window, and they catered it, where they discovered
the truth about Liz that she was actually half Welsh, and left a check to pay for the broken window.
You want all the dissidents to do that sort of thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway,
we were, another time we were staying with them at their cottage, and they thought I was a
Cockney, and we were in the local pub, and they said, “Do you want to play, do you want to play
five-card bragg with us for money?” You say, “So we did, and the guy was standing behind me,
and he could see what I had in my hand, and was telling his mates sitting across from me,
what I had in my hand in Welsh, well, I could understand what he was saying, so I knew when to stack,
and when to go, so we cleaned up, this is about by 2.69, and Ian and I won about 15 quid,
and that’s where we were leaving the pub, we said to them, I said to them, “Nostar here,
and Dioch on Audioun.” But they were very good about it, because they realised they’d been had.
Yeah, I suppose if they were trying to pull a fast one,
that wasn’t really a lot else they could. But they said, Liz is uncle who lived in San
Beres, he said, they talked about it for months after that.
We have exciting news, the Gitt shirtie podcast is going live. Yes, you will be able to see the
podcast been recorded live for the very first time, and it’s all part of this year’s
Tumberjuel’s French festival. It’s going to be on July 4th at the old auction house just off the
Pantars in Tumberjuel’s. It is a ticketed event, just £3 per ticket, but numbers are limited,
so booking sooner rather than later is advised, and you can do that by going to TWFringe.com
and just search for Gitt shirtie. We’ll be announcing our guests soon on one of our social media
platforms are all of them probably, not just one of them, and we obviously can’t wait to see
you all there at the Tumberjuel’s French festival. So, July 4th, the old auction house Tumberjuel’s
French. Don’t forget to book soon, otherwise you will miss out and you’ll have to get all shirtie.
We toured under milkwood to small scale arts places in the southeast, and then it didn’t require any
scenery. We only had rostrum and six chairs because it’s a play for voices, really. We had such
goodwill, and we filled the theaters, and I thought, “What else can we do? We’ve got the goodwill
of the theaters now. What else can we do that doesn’t require a great deal of scenery?”
So, I suddenly thought, “I know, radio doesn’t require scenery.” So, we got a radio mic, like the old
BBC that looked like a coffin, like a coffin, mic, use some sound effects, and I put together a show
with Ittmar, take it from here, the gloves from take it from here,
handcooks half hour, round the horn, and round the horn, I had to get, oh, and the gun show,
right, and I had to get the rights to all these to do them on stage, and I got in touch with Barry
Tuk and Barry Tuk wrote round the hall with Marty Feldman, and he phoned me up one day and he said,
“I don’t want any money, you can have the rights to round the horn, I don’t want any money for it,
and I think I could speak on behalf of Marty, even without the aid of Doris Stokes, who was a psychic.”
Of course, round the horn, I didn’t think I’d really clop that that was Barry Tuk for some reason.
He wrote a lot stuff, right? He wrote most of them.
Eventually, when Marty Feldman went to America, I think some others took over for the last
I don’t know, they did about five series and for the last series, somebody else took over.
All right, gosh.
So you sort of did excerpt from all those shows yourself? Is that what you were doing on the stage?
No, we didn’t record them, I don’t think.
But that’s what you were doing on the stage, is that what you were recreating?
We were recreating them.
Oh, we were recreating them, yes, oh yes, yes, yes, which handcooks half hour, which one did you do for me,
do you remember? I think I did handcook, yes.
Yes, I used my favourite line, whose was inkmau, Bergman, half of people around here have never heard of it.
That’s my mind, it’s a point, a point, a lot of wonderful.
There’s writing, I think with some of those shows, the writing was just in jewels, doesn’t it?
The one we did, the handcook half hour, was where he’s going to Germany during the war.
And he said, don’t finish the time, yes, yes, he’s going armed with a German phrase book,
and a gun, and Hitler must start to disguise himself.
Yeah, yeah.
As great as that, I started to use the line, all of that is.
And around the horn, it stood the test of time, one of the sketches was a James Bond sketch, you know,
and it cue was saying to James Bond, you know, here’s your gadget spawn,
and here’s an exploding banjo, and a little poo, it’s called Naughty Fido, Fido gets the blame.
He said, how will that get me out of the tight corner?
Put it on the floor, and whilst they’re beating the hell out of the dog, you’re going to escape.
Oh brilliant.
Brilliant. Yeah, I think those sorts of, I mean, obviously,
times changed, don’t they? But I think those sorts of things are still relevant and watchable now.
That’s right, that’s right. And I can remember, I lived in Kingston at the time, and I think
around the horn used to go on about half one till two o’clock. So we used to go to the pub at 12,
and the pub used to out here, because we always used to go and listen to around the horn before
you had Sunday roast, you know. Yeah, yeah, that’s great, isn’t it? Oh, so, so I suppose work,
get shirties, where we kind of cover those off, and just sort of going back to the pub,
that going out, the get shirties right in there, we had football, is it?
Having to leave the pub to go and listen to the radio, would that be another one?
What are you going out? Get shirties. Get shirties, yes, yes.
I suppose we sort of cover that with football, but… Yes.
Yeah, I don’t know what else did I get shirtied about. I hate people making assumptions, you know,
when… Oh, I assume that, are you? Like…
No, you see somebody in a terrible, scruffy, baseball cap, and they don’t know how to dress,
for all you know, they could be a PhD, or they’re an expert in Greek literature, you know?
Yeah, it’s very true.
They’ve made a judgment by how they appear.
I think that’s very easily done, actually.
There are times when we’ve had customers who come in and sort of, you do think to yourself,
“Oh, I don’t know if we’re the right place, but you’re not necessarily because of how they
dress, or you just sort of make a snap, you know, snap decisionals, can say choice.”
It’s a world-unlooking judgment, judgment, opinion, thanks, G.
I’d forgotten that to talk, momentarily, there.
But yeah, you do kind of naturally do that, and it’s quite hard,
I suppose, you all slightly pre-programmed to do it, oh my God.
Yes, yes, yes.
But back in the day, when I had hair, I used to have very long hair, and it was one of the things,
actually, that I’d get quite shirty about, because I had long hair, and, you know,
I wasn’t going to be professional, you know, that’s what Easter was, really, back in the day,
before I was a tailor.
Where’s our producer and director? You used to get shirty on, on, on the police, so we used,
we were scared of it, physically scared of it.
Right.
Because he was, well, he was about 50 years old, but he was an expert trampolinist,
and used to play squash regularly.
And so, when he shouted at you, he used to think, “Oh, God, you know, I’m scared,
and in the studio one day was doing his pieces, and a vision mixer threw us on a side,
and he said, “I missed his last western.”
We didn’t dare laugh, it just Mark heard it, you know?
I went to Corona Academy, stage school, and there were lots of them who had leading roles in it,
like Paul Cole, and Fraser Hines, and Richie Lowe Sullivan, and Richard became a very close friend of mine.
I think one time, I think I was about 17 years old, and I was out of work,
and he was doing a film for Walt Disney called The Prince and the Porpo.
And it was way behind Shedul and way over budget.
And because I was out of work, he said to me, I could get your job standing in for me,
or doubling on some of the, it was the second unit, and on some of the long shots, I doubled for him.
So anyway, he’d only done one scene, and one Friday, I said to him, “Have a good weekend, Richard,”
and he said, “Oh, on you, Laban, even better week next week.” I said, “What do you mean?”
So he tapped the side of his nose, and he said, “Wait and see, if you wouldn’t tell me.”
I got to the studio on the Monday morning, and he said, “Richard’s contract has run out,
and he starts work today on the Cliff Richard film The Young Ones. Would you take over?”
So I said, “Yes, okay.” So my salary went up to about 100 quid all week long.
Money then, because I think that was about 1961, or 1962, or something.
And my status changed. Got me a cart and run me back.
Because you haven’t got the money, it’s not immediate. You have to wait until your agent gets it,
and probably weeks after the film’s finished. And so I used to get the driver to drop me off
by Sheppard’s Bush Green. This is why you can’t get beheaded in our business.
I used to go around the corner and clean offices.
How did that work with the scenes that have had already been filmed then?
So did you have that? Well, he’d only done one scene. Right, so did you have to redo that scene?
No, what they did, they called a Sunday and brought Richard in on a Sunday.
And he was the henchman for Donald Houston, who was the main villain.
And I was spout sitting in the barn and Richard came in, and he introduced me to the Donald
Houston Couragee. He said, “This is Len. He’ll be looking after you from now on.”
And that was it. I was written into it. In your wedding?
In our wedding. Oh, brilliant.
So yeah, and so thanks to Richard, I’ve met Walt Disney because he came over for the rap party.
And a friend of mine said, “If you’d kept a copy of the script and got his autograph,
think what it would be worth now, I think, yeah, but when you said ‘teen’, you don’t think things like that.
So did you work on anything else from Disney, or was it?
No, no, no, but I did another sort of thing at that part, about 1980.
They asked for me. It was George and Mildred, the movie.
I saw that you’ve been in George and Mildred. How was that?
Oh, it’s lovely, yeah. Brian Murphy and Yutha Joyce, there were lovely people to work with.
And I’ve done a lot with Brian Murphy since then.
Right.
Yeah, because I’ve worked with his wife. What happened was I was doing a talk. I do a lot of talks
about my career. And I was doing one for a guy called Stuart Morris, who runs a company called
Misty Moon, do lots of events. And he came down to Cambridge Wells and he and his wife had a glass of wine
with him and he said, “You know, when you did that talk, it went down very well, but they would have
liked you to have done a bit of Frankie Abbott.” So I said, “Stuart.” I said, “I’m in my 70s. I feel a bit
stupid doing Frankie Abbott.” And then I got a light bulb moment. I thought, “How would it be if I did
it in real time?” So I wrote the script that Frankie Abbott was called The Day in the Lives of Frankie Abbott.
And he was at a care home and I got Linda Regan, who used to play April, Jeffrey Holland’s
girlfriend in Hyde High, who’s married to Brian Murphy and got her to play the carer in the care
home. We took it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2016 and got five star review with it.
Brilliant. And I’ve since rewritten it for a cast of six and we did it in a cabaret club in London
called Phoenix Artist Club. We did it live in front of an audience and we recorded it and it’s now
available to buy as an audio on Google Play and Amazon Audible. I’ve shortened the title to the
Lives of Frankie Abbott because it’s set over, you know, with a cast of six. So with people like Graham
Cole who played PC Stamp in the Bill is in it and all that sort of thing. It’s amazing isn’t it? That
sort of character is endured, you know, you sort of kept returning to you. Yeah, yeah.
From because presumably, you know, you did your audition for the part back in The Day.
Yeah, I heard the fun go then just saying, “That’s my agent, tell him I’m not available.”
We did, we timed you a busy. Yeah. Busy recording a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And have you got sort of any
sort of acting things coming up or are you just focusing on the writing now? No, I’ve focused more
on the writing now and I’ve just had published the hardest book who took about a year. Normally my
book’s usually about three to six months but this was a whole year because it was called The Film
Bup’s Guide, A Humorous History of Cinema, which is a past subject really. Yeah, it’s hard to do that
one quickly, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, yeah, so that just came out just before Christmas.
You’re a big fan of cinema, are they? Oh, yes. That’s why I became an actor really because of
growing up in Abelok Anglesy, northern most parts of Anglesy, I wanted to be an actor for as long
as I can remember, but there weren’t any theaters to go to, but there was the Royal Cinema,
and I used to live in there. And I can remember at the age of nine, seeing a young Marlon Brando
in a film called “Diva Zapata” with a screenplay by John Steinbeck. It just didn’t get any better than that.
And you know, and it was wonderful. And the only theater I can remember seeing when I was that age,
my parents, we came for a long weekend in Liverpool, and we went to see the post-West End
production of Carousel. Now, at nine, it impressed me, but I remember Thich Wundring, you know,
I’m the same age as what’s his name? Jerry Marsden. Yes, Jerry Marsden. Now, he’s the same age
as he died, unfortunately, two or three years ago, but we are the same age. And I just wondered if his
parents had taken him age nine to see, you know, Carousel, and if that song, you’ll never walk alone,
filtered into his brain and became a hit for him in the 60s, you know. We met Jerry.
Yeah, we were doing the Lads from Fenstery in Hull, and he was appearing as Caesar’s Palace or
somewhere, and we went to promote our show just before he did his cabaret, and he heard we were in,
and he’s got a bottle of Scotch in his dressing room and said, have a drink with me, and he came to
see our show, brought his family to see it, and they invited us back on the Saturday and got us
another bottle of Scotch, and a really nice guy, yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. We do a, a, a, b, sort of,
up there is one of the best people that you’ve sort of spent time with through your career,
because then that must have been some sort of legend. Oh, he was lovely, Jerry, yeah, and my,
I X Y, she worked for Thames Television on the costume department, and one day she phoned me up,
and she said, oh, he’s working with Matthew Corbet, and they were doing a comedy show at Thames Television,
and I said I was married to you, and Jerry said, oh, come down until the anchor pub next door,
we’ll have a drink, so we had a drink in the anchor with Jerry. Oh, brilliant. Yeah, brilliant.
And anybody else who really sort of stands out is, oh, well, it was great to meet that person,
you know, I mean, you got off to a really good start with Lauren Solivio, really, didn’t you?
That’s right, right. And when we were doing police, we used to meet lots of famous people in the bar,
and Mark Stewart also used to direct the Tommy Cooper show, and he brought Tommy Cooper, he was in
the bar one day, he said, I’ll bring him over to meet you, and he said, I’d like to be it, by all
you police are people, the drink, and he brought out this enormous hang chief, which had a dozen knots
around it, he said, my money is on the inside, and he’d struggle to open the door, by which time
somebody bought him three drinks, and Mark told us afterwards, he said, he’s very careful with his money,
and Carl would pick him up to bring him to the studio, and he’d say to the driver, have a drink on me,
and put something in the driver’s top pocket, which turned out to be a tea bag. Oh genius.
Yeah, okay, and what was, was he a sort of larger than life?
Oh yes. A person to meet in there. He was, he was, and he was funny to look at, he was like an
overgrown parrot, you know. Yeah, it was sort of like the bottom teeth, was sort of always hour one,
and a half, yeah. But we, we, they were housey in days, and it was great hearing the
stories from some of the older actors, you know, the people who played the staff, and Derek Geiler,
and Derek told us that, um, 1953, he’d done a voiceover for the bouse trap,
there was a radio broadcast on stage, for which they paid in from, or six months, a week,
right, so, you know, 46, is to the pound, so they were paying in one pound, six shillings, a year,
for the bouse over. So anyway, when, just before lockdown, I got in touch with them, when I started
writing the book about police, I wrote a book, police, early official history, and I got in touch with
the mouse trap, and he said, “Do you still use Derek Geiler’s voiceover?” So they said, “Yeah, we still
use his voiceover.” So he’s the longest running member of the mouse trap, he’s been in it for 70 years.
Wow, that’s great. Fantastic. So I’m waiting for it to come up in a pub quiz, I know there they are
for that. Yeah, I imagine you’re very good in a pub quiz actually. Well, I don’t know, I don’t know,
it sport comes up. Right. We are not on football, obviously, we don’t. Yeah, we’ve got a hold
hand, I know, football is not for me, but… Yeah, yeah. Yes, so yeah, and the other thing that Derek Geiler
told us, he said, “One of his fondest memories, he was in the West End, in the 7th of May 1945 in a play.”
And of course, the B.E. night celebrations, the official that were on May 8th, but they heard that
Germany had surrendered, and he came forward at the curtain call to announce that Germany surrendered,
and it’s peace in Europe, and he said everybody was cheering, and he had tears in his eyes, and all that
sort of thing. He said it was a very fond memory, you know. And he was very… He was very good,
that sort of thing, dude. No, that’s… Did you play the washboard, Derek Geiler? Yes, you see, in fact,
we did the 5C, us cast of 5C, got us to do a charity event, and we went round afterwards to his
house, and he played us some jazz records, and played us the washboard, you know. No, he was great fun,
he was great fun. And then B.E. was wasn’t it, washboard? Yeah, and the only time, the only time
we had a retake was when Derek Corpst on the police, and he couldn’t be blamed, because he was
talking to this woman, she… I think she played the dinner lady, and she had false teeth,
all right, and she ejaculated a false teeth. He was finished then, he couldn’t stop laughing.
I’d still be laughing now, I think, I’d say. But that was the only time, and there was one time that
Peter Cleal played Eric Duffy, Malcolm McFee played Peter Craven, and Peter had to say to Malcolm,
you want to watch yourself, Peter, to which Malcolm replied, go on, hit me then, Peter. Everyone
was called Peter, but Mark Stewart still didn’t do a retake, he just left it in. He probably thought,
“Oh, well, there’ll be one repeat, and then it all be forgotten about, little realising that in
the future there will be DVDs, videos first in the 70s, and then DVDs, and I’ve had people contact
me and saying, ‘I’ve got the box set, was that a ninja?’ And they were two pizzas, and so no, no, no, no,
Mark refused to do a retake. Oh, because he didn’t want to edit it, he didn’t want to edit it, yeah, yeah.
All right, now I’m reaching, he’s reaching, I’m going to have to stand up and move. So this, I did
mention it briefly earlier, so I think we’ve covered work going out, home, we haven’t covered home,
ever, yeah, no, we haven’t covered home. So before we move on to the off-the-cuff hat, I’ll explain
in a minute, so get shirties for home, have you got any get shirties for home? Get shirties for home.
I’m not sure, I can’t, I can’t think of any get shirties for home. I hate domestic stuff, that’s
gets me shirtie, you know, doing things domestically, I’m on my own now, so I tend to eat out a lot,
like I can’t be bothered, you know, you could go to the opera house and get a meal and a large glass
of wine for less than a tenor. Why would you bother, by the time you’ve cooked, you’re using a lot of energy.
Washed up, put the dishwasher in, yeah, I’m with you 100%. If I could do that every day, or nearly every
day, I think I would. Yes, yes, but yeah, no, that’s fair actually, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s how
to get round to get shirties. So yeah, just generally doing the housework, you’re not a housework sort of person.
I’m not, I’m not, no, I think only dull people do housework. Do you know, I’m going to go home and say
that’s going to be nothing. I’m far too interesting to be doing housework actually, I’m not dull enough, yeah, no, that’s fair,
that’s fair. It’s also what gets me shirty when I’m at home, right? And I don’t know why I do it,
but it’s almost therapeutic, right? I watch question time, and my language, it’s terrible, I can’t do it now,
but it’s, you’re more than welcome. But it’s therapeutic, I see some of the politicians, and what I call
up, but it gets it off my chest. To myself, that nobody can hear at home, you know? Yeah, well, I think
there’s something to be said, I’ve, for that, I think it’s question time. I mean, I watch it because I
feel like I should. I feel like it’s going on. And I sort of understand the way that all sides are
thinking, but, and it’s, it’s, it’s phony, you know, it’s fake because they’ve vetted the questions that
the people are going to ask, because I’ve often thought, if they wanted me to ask a question, I was in
the, you know, supposing I changed that question, yeah, that was fool, and wouldn’t it? I’d love to do that.
Well, that’s because they don’t be at a loss, wouldn’t they? We wouldn’t have their notes. Yeah, well,
I say that that perhaps that should be your next thing. Yes, I was going to be in the audience
at one time, question time, and they, you had to submit your questions. Yes, that’s right. That’s right.
No, they’ve met them, did you say? And I thought exactly the same, and she thought, if I get on,
I’ll do that, but somehow I didn’t get on. Yeah, perhaps they, perhaps they’ve got that dump button,
as they do on radio, the four second dump button, if you start swearing, and they just, they just
edit it out and immediate edit. That’s, that’s a possibility, isn’t it? Yeah, it is, it’s a,
it’s a stranger one. So yeah, I’m with you on that. It’s wearing it, question time. I think that’s,
yes, I was doing a poll, I was doing a live thing for, um, BRNB, the radio Birmingham once,
and it was a phone in as well, and the, the interviewer, it was, it was saying some very strange things,
and he said, what’s your name? And he said, Ira, and he, he did the, he dumped it immediately,
and then talked to me, and he said, Ira stands for IRA, doesn’t it? But he might not have been,
might have been a genuine name, but he dumped it. Is a name? What else do you swear right on the
television? Oh, well, not a lot of politicians lately. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, um, I, I find, uh, yeah,
topical programs actually quite irritating. I find television, actually, that’s reality TV for me,
and I suppose it, yeah, reality TV, right? To watch it. There’s only one reality TV that I like,
and that’s dragons den, because I like to see when somebody does become successful, and they take
them on board, and they, you know, yeah, that’s true. That’s called, uh, Shark Tank in America.
It’s called what? Shark Tank, you know, is there, they are equivalent. That sounds about right for
America. So it’s the same concept though, they have, yeah, I’m going to have to check that afterwards.
And fact check that, you’ll be fact checking out. Well, you know, you’d have to do it now, but,
you can, you can be kept in good, but yeah, I think it’s the same sort of thing people go on on
pitch to, uh, to, uh, people with money, they decide whether to, yeah, to do it or not. But other
reality TV, no, I don’t think so. Now there’s, there’s a few I like, I don’t know, it’s funny,
television sort of, yeah, there’s, it is. Oh, no, I got it right. Thanks, sir. Um, but there’s a lot
of television, now, this, I dread to think if you’re a TV commissioner now thinking about the expense
of how to pay for something, how to get the revenue back from it, how to make it cheaply, and all of
that, you know, you can understand the rise of reality TV because it’s cheap. Yes, because it’s cheap,
yeah, and quiz shows as well. Yeah. Yeah. Even though they give sometimes big prize money, it’s still
cheap for them to do because you imagine what, um, what a costume drama costs. Even something that’s
set in 1950s is still 1950s costume. Yeah, it’s, it’s incredible. I mean, Spooks was very popular
program and the reason they had to finish it was, it was too expensive. It’s costing a million
quid an episode. Yeah, incredible. Yeah, incredible. And of course, with a lot of these things,
they, it’s the resale value of being able to sell them out to other territories. That’s right.
That’s right. Rewatched and, you know, because I was quite surprised actually that, um, it’s something
that’s come up on, on this before, in fact, we’ve had a guest who was, um, an actress on the, the TV
daytime soap, uh, doctors, and that, that, that’s no longer going after years and years and years.
Right. Yeah, because it’s just become like economically unviable. That’s right. Yes.
It’s a, um, chum that I’ve worked with, uh, a Christimathy, Christoph’s Timothy, who was also the
vet. He did the doctors, I think, a direct, some direct, it’s a, that’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Christopher Timberlake. Because he directed us in the last one, Fenstreet.
I really even wrote us a few sketches, one parody of himself because he used to do the sun commercials.
Wow. It’s all in a sentational sun. And he wrote that sketch for Malcolm McFee doing a parody of him.
Wow. And how great. Yeah. Great. Oh, Christopher Timothy. Yeah. They say all creatures, great
and so on. Because that’s being re-made, isn’t it? All creatures, great and so on. That’s right. Yes.
So, don’t like it, I don’t like it as much. Oh, really? I like the original. It’s quite, quite nostalgia.
The original, isn’t it? But I could never get past either the loss of Carol Drinkwater to, you know,
as soon as she wasn’t there. Yeah, but over the next creature is great and so on. Yeah.
I quite, quite, but I believe the bellinger was a good, good person. Yeah, but when I was eight,
or anything was when Carol Drinkwater left, I was distraught. Distraught. Oh, good, good. Right. So now,
it’s time for the hat. What’s the hat? So we will do the, we explain this every podcast we bring out.
So we thought, wouldn’t it be fun to do a last round of Get Shirties off the cuff? Because you’ve
got the shirt puffs off the cuff. So we will ask you to pick a little piece of paper out here,
read it out and see if there’s anything that gets you shirty about the thing that’s written on
the piece of paper off the cuff, you know, you haven’t had to think about it beforehand. But we
couldn’t think of how to deliver the off the cuff with all the little bits of paper. So we thought,
I will just put them in a hat. So now it’s the off the cuff section taken from a hat, which
means it no longer makes sense of the, the cuff out of the hat off the cuff out of the hat. But
it doesn’t really make sense, does it? It sort of loses the shirt pun. But someone said we could pin
them to a cuff with a shirt, but well, that doesn’t. So we’re sticking with a hat, aren’t we?
So in here are lots of little things that for you to pick one and then see if there’s something
about that subject that that would get you shirty. It’s quite small on there. Let me know if you
super natural. Ah, super natural. Is there anything about the super natural? I can’t
think of it, were there any of these that are right? So what would get you shirty about the super
natural? Is there anything? Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Absolutely.
Decide. It wasn’t it? Absolutely. Yeah. People who actually believe in poltergeists and psychic
phenomena and all that, where it’s just magicians, really, misdirection, whatever you like to call it.
And it’s only gullible people who see ghosts and things like that, isn’t it? It does seem to be that
right. Yeah. I mean, so you’ve never seen a ghost? Intellectuals never see ghosts, do they?
Well, not that. I mean, when was the last time you heard of an intellectual seeing a ghost
or a haunted house or probably after C. Clark was probably the last one?
Yeah, he used to like quite a lot of that, didn’t he? After C. Clark,
you know, we mentioned our C. Clark, he was the one that we’ve got in trouble, was he?
Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve got to. But having said that, I quite like
suits natural films because I accept it for what it is fiction, you know, a bit like the Bible.
Oh, now, now we’re going, this is going to be a good off the cup. No, I agree. I agree. I look
to see there are plenty of intellectuals who do believe in that, aren’t they?
Oh, yes. In the Bible, particularly. I mean, that’s the thing.
Pentebule intellectuals. Yes, the tricky one, isn’t it, religion? It is a tricky one.
But yeah, you know, I’m with you on that. Well, yes, but if you think about it when it all began,
it was, there was the first revolution of humankind was a cognitive revolution.
People started to think, and what did they do when they started to think?
They thought, we’ve got to explain the thunder. Oh, somebody in a chariot, a god in a chariot,
you know, Zeus, you know, and so that’s how it came about, religion. And then when we built our first
cities, how do we control people, religion? That’s how we control them. That’s what’s happening
in the Middle East at the moment. Oh, sorry. We shouldn’t go there. Well, now there is a kind of
one’s to, to talk about. But now, I think you’re right, that, not just in the Middle East, over here as well.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yes, yes. Well, yeah, I don’t think quite so much now. It’s because politics is removed
from religion. Back in Elizabeth, the first time it wasn’t religion, control people. You could,
you could get fined if you didn’t go to church on the Sunday, Shakespeare’s father missed church
on two or three occasions and he was fined quite heavily. All right. But you had to go to church then.
Yeah. But supernatural on, on the, on, not, not, I think it’s, it’s an interesting talking point.
It fooled some people though. It’s filled, um, not H. G. Wells, the, um, Conan Doyle,
Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. With the paris. Yeah. Yeah. Bigot, I was going to say a local
lad. I can know. Oh, yes, Arthur Conan Doyle. Wasn’t it Croybro. Croybro. Yeah. Well, it’s where he
ended his life. That’s right. Yeah. But he, there was, um, one of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries,
makes reference to Greenbridge Place as well. So there was, there was another little link there. But,
yeah, so, yeah, but he was very taken in by the mystics and he didn’t realize that with the flapping
of their wings, they’d be, you know, they’d be out of focus, wouldn’t they? The wings of the fair.
No, but those cut out pieces of cardboard draped in a hedge. Very convincing.
Yeah. Very convincing. Yeah. But people have been convinced by Yuri Gella bending a Spoon.
Yeah. Yuri Gella. People believe anything.
Well, as if they want to believe, yeah. Yeah. And the stopping of the watches and all that, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you pick up a watch and shake it, it’s bound to start again,
isn’t it, for a little while? Yeah. It’s made his whole life on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And whole living. Yeah. There’s a, um, there’s a really good, uh, sort of following on from that,
how sort of sort of sensible people can take a, uh, semi-ret, well, a ridiculous idea in Ramadhi is the,
how all their CIA and, uh, uh, believed in, you know, remote viewing and, well, there’s the John
Ronson book, um, The Manusay, The Ghost. Yes. And, uh, there was made into a, a big movie,
and, well, that’s, you know, you would think, I suppose that, that starts with a preface,
well, there’s got to be something in it. So off we go. And how department for the remote viewing,
isn’t that a whole section? People sitting in the window to it, going, oh, they’re over there in that
building. Yeah. Yeah. You’re going to be right, you know, stopwatch, right, twice a day. Well,
there used to be a magazine. I think it was called encounter. Right. Very popular in the 60s.
People like Bertrand Russell used to write for it. It was an intellectual magazine, an artistic
magazine. Do you know who paid for it? The CIA. No, your enemy, you see. All right. Okay. I thought
you were going to say that 40 in time. Yeah. That’s still going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
You bless a conspiracy paper though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is what the CIA were doing. We’re
reading all the articles. The left wing articles, getting to know them. Yeah. Yeah. So,
incredible, isn’t it? You did say a phrase in that, uh, in, when you were talking earlier,
I think it’s perfect for a podcast, which I think it should do the cognitive revolution.
There’s a podcast title. If every I heard one, so, uh, you know, let me know if you want to start
work on that. We can just talk about the supernatural from the script. Well, it’s funny. It’s
funny, you know, something, something. Not something. I like the supernatural fictional stuff.
I quite like that. That’s good. You know, it’s good to have a scare now. Again, isn’t it? Of course,
because you did a couple of short comedy horror movies. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, they were good fun to do, but, um, yeah, so, but it’s funny. I’ve never really gone on with
fantasy, you know, like Harry Potter and, yeah, Lord of the Rings. But I love the Greek myths. I love
those, you know? But, uh, then you’re primed for Percy Jackson and the, what are the other
Percy Jackson books? I don’t know. No, no, no, no. Similar sort of thing, I suppose, trying to
catch the Harry Potter sort of things, but Percy Jackson, who is descended from the god, you say.
Yeah. I’m reading one at the moment called Ariadne by Jennifer Saint, which is she’s writing
the story of, uh, the feces and the minor tour and all that sort of thing, but writing it from a
more feminist point of view. What’s the thing you’ve just done watching, Steve? Sure. Oh, um, um, written by
Oh, fuck, Samson, uh, P.J. Samson. I just died. Yeah. I see. Yeah. That’s, yeah. So, yeah. Shard like, yeah. The
tunchback lawyer. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Good books. Yeah. It’s good. It’s a good show. Yeah.
Well, it’s good to have a spin off. I’ve got one myself, which I wrote called Mr. McCorber down under.
Right. So, um, at the end of David Copperfield, McCorber and his family go to Australia. So, I wrote
the novel set in Australia with the further adventures of the McCorber family. Oh, great. Yeah.
Oh, I wanted to read that. I’ll have to, uh, I’ll have to give myself on, uh, well, I was about to say,
give yourself an Amazon and all of these things up, but much better to do it through your local independent
bookshop. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Although we don’t have an independent, we’ve got a lot of
things. Yeah. All the things. Yeah. It’s hardly independent. No, but do you know actually,
I think it went through a bit of a funny time, water stain. It was bought by H&B and then sold back
to water stains. And I think it struggled for a little while. However, what they are, very good at
is they’ve got knowledgeable books. Oh, yes. And they love, yes. If they’re given a section,
they love it. Yeah. They really, they really go for it. Spoken as an, as a, an ex-water stains book.
But all the, all the books that they have on the tables facing upwards, not on the shelves,
that they’re displaying, um, all the publishers had to pay them for that. Yeah. They might,
you know, oh, I’ve got the latest book out of that, the paid water stones are grand to display.
Yeah. Well, not even one, they do. Yeah. But all that places. Yeah. Well,
there’s a bit of money makes the world go around. Well, yeah, yeah. It’s like WH Smith. I know
somebody who publishes magazine. He has to pay them, uh, 24 grand a year to get some magazine into
WH Smith’s. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Well, I’ll put my magazine dreams.
Steadying. But the mother backshell, yeah. Oh, very good. Be on the top shelf, you’ll be on the top shelf,
you’ll be on the top shelf, you’ll be standing on it. Really? Um, well, look, on that box, yeah. I think
that if you got another book in the works and then, um, yes, I, well, I’m expanding a book. I’ve
already had published actually. It’s called Tales from Soho. Short Stories, all setting Soho
of different eras. And I’m expanding that now. I’m writing a lot more stories, probably about
another half dozen stories. Then I’m going to take photographs of all of, you know, there’s loads
of blue plaques. It’s got so much history like that. And I’m going to take photographs. So I won’t
have to worry about a copyright because I’ll take them myself. Yeah. Uh, around Soho, some of the
pubs and all that sort of thing, which, you know, so an expanded version of Tales from Soho.
Oh, great. Oh, fantastic. We’ll look out, look out for that. And we’ll, we’ll, um, read it with Glee,
I don’t know, that’d be fantastic. But thank you so much for coming in. It’s been an absolute
pleasure talking with you and. Well, thank you, Stuart. I feel like we’ve only scratched the surface
that today. I’ll feel like there’s many more stories that we could get from you. So hopefully,
we’ll get to talk to you again and we’ll see you when your shirt’s done and ready. All right.
Yes. Thank you. Okay. A few pictures. Yeah. Thanks. That was a much of a comment. Okay. Thank you.
It’s both Stuart’s.
What an amazing career David has had spanning over 70 years. That’s incredible.
Needless to say, we made sure that no coffee was thrown during the recording of the podcast.
I mean, who knew Panto was so vicious and not me for sure. Thank you today for coming in to see us.
It was amazing chatting with you. Thanks as always to Stuart Wilson for editing and production.
To Sam for keeping us on track and to Datt Hazard for the music. I was your host Stuart Hardman.
And until we speak next time, do try not to get too shirty.
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